"I was knocked over by Schmidt’s first book—Here’s this poet observing his other lives: a suburban husband, father, neighbor… unnatural roles that seem to startle him into his own whimsical and delicious imagination. But that’s only the half of it—there’s a sequence of dramatic poems starring G.I. Joe and his loyal friend Barbie that takes you directly inside their dicey, made-up lives. By the end, I was so thrilled by his vision, I wished I could ask him to write my own suburban myth, to bring it to life as only he can." Kendra Kopelke, Author of Eager Street and Carpe Diem, Ants

"Suburban Myths is a treasure of unique poems. Schmidt embraces a great armada of history and uses it as a backdrop to share his perspective on our humanness. Schmidt casts a unique and playful eye on the lives we live, writing poems that are both insightful and wise. Of special note are his poems about marriage, family, and children which capture our experiences with an absolutely endearing and charming accuracy that awakens us again and anew to the wonders of our complex lives."Michael S. Glaser
Poet Laureate of Maryland, 2004-2009

"There is something extraordinarily existential about Schmidt’s Suburban Myths, the idea that within each suburban house there is a private myth being woven by each member of each family. Reading it, you get the sense of suburbs laid out like oyster beds, every home a bivalve carefully creating its own mythical pearl. In that same way, these poems are strung like iridescent and nacreous pearls, each carefully composed, each beautifully assembled, each a precious existential liberation." Edgar Silex
Author of Through All the Displacements and Acts of Love

About
Sam Schmidt

Founder and editor of WordHouse, Baltimore’s newsletter for
writers, Sam Schmidt works and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
He has been published in the Maryland Poetry Review, Black Moon, the Dancing Shadow Review, the Potomac Review, Gargoyle, Potomac, and the anthology Weavings 2000. He coedited Poetry Baltimore: Poems about a City.